The Daily bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Hawaii]) 1882-1895, 1887-03-26


of the honors oft his especial gift.
The ladies-God bless them
though weak as warriors, are ever
ready to inspire men TO gallant
deeds, and if they do not enlist for
war, they prepare and animate the
soldier to q heroism and devotion
which would be but fcebly illustrated
without their sweet, tender, yet
heroic spirit. And now they give
you this flag, which 1 am pleased to
place in your hands, and to say to
you to bear and defend it for the
honor of Hawaii.
And 1 add my word of encourage
ment to that of these noble ladies,
and say, officers and members of the
Honolulu Rifles, as your King, l
conlidc in your patriotism and
courage, and shall hope TO see many
an honorable record inscribed upon
the flag l now present.
Captain Ashford, receiving the
flag, replied in the following words:
May it please Your Majesty:
On behalf of the Honolulu Rifles,
l beg to testify to the pleasure it
affords us all to receive from the
wives of the members of the corps,
and most especially through the
hands of Your Majesty, whose
friendship to the Rifles is known and
appreciated by everyone of us, this
beautiful emblem of the unity of
many peoples who, blended together
on benignant basis of political and
race equality, combine to form the
Kingdom of Hawai-, of which Your
Majesty is the honored Sovereign.
In every age the flag or ensign
has been the chief of all insignia of
power and sovereignty-the symbol
which has called forth the ardor of
patriots and the courage of brave
men.
AS illustrating the veneration in
which national banners have, from
time immemorial, been held, we are
told in the Book of Numbers that in
the wanderings of the Israelites
through the wilderness, they were
ordered to pitch their tents, "every
man by his own standard, with the
ensign of his fathers house." And
historians assure us that the yellow
ensign and dragon of China, as we
see it to-day, was the banner of that
oldest of nations before the era of
the siege of ancient Troy.
So it comes to pass that the
national standard is revered by every
man and woman rs something to
which all owe Il duty something
which all good citizens should sup
port with their fortunes, their sacred
honor and their lives. Even the
little child en-, God bless them, early
imbibe the spirit of "Ionor to the
Flag"
What son of ancestors who con-
tested for supremacy with Caesars
legions in the valley of the Seine,
whose love for France, the Beautiful,
is not strengthened by sight of the
Tri-color?
Where is the descendant of those
who followed the fortunes of the
Great Frederick whose pulse-beat is
not NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. affection for
the fatherland does not wax warmer
when he looks upon the national
emblem of that great monarch's
successes, whose Goth birthday we
all so recently helped our German
fellow citizens to celebrate?
Which of us is not made glad by
the beautiful, the glorious Star
Spangled Banner-the flag of Wash
ington and Lincoln?
Flag of the free, hope and home,
BY angel hands to valor given;
Thy bright Stars light the welkin dome,
And all thy hues were born in heaven.
Can we ever forget "The Meteor
Flag of England" that floated over
the "thin red lines" at Waterloo,
whose shadow covered British hearts
of oak at land and sea, on fields
which are bounded by the earth
alone:
The flag that braved a thousand years,
The battle and the breeze.
And within whose thousand years
of glorious record no soldier fighting
under its folds was ever wounded
in the back.
Nor can any form of death induce
the stern, unyielding Russian
whether Cossack-of-the-Don or man
o'-war's-man from the Volga or the
EuXine-to turn his back upon the
banner of the Czar-the double
headed eagle with broad wings,
covering an empire whose confines
are the confines of three oceans and
two continents, whose limits are the
icebergs Of the frozen seas, and
India's burning sands.
Then why should we, the repre-
sentatives of all the races, feel less
pride in the national standard Of our
adopted country those than from
whom we sprang? On the roll of the
Honolulu Rifles are men of almost
every fair-skinned race. We have in
our ranks men who have seen active
service in the armies of Russia,
Austria, Germany, England, tile
United States, Canada, and the
various Australian colonies. And
if we have not, amid the calls of
business pursuits, been able to arrive